Magical Overdose
by helebette
Summary: Emma can't even handle one little dream catcher spell. Regina helps with the aftermath.


"Really? You want my help?" If looks could kill, then James and Snow would be dead at Regina's front door.

"Please Regina…" Snow begged. "I'm sorry for accusing you. I mean we saw you, what we thought to be you, but we were wrong and I'm sorry but…we need your help…We're trying to help Emma to quit magic…"

Now Regina was confused. She leaned against her doorframe and looked briefly at the sun. "It's only been a short time. How much magic has she done? It really shouldn't be hard for her to stop…"

Two days previous, Regina's name had been cleared. In the end it had been Ruby who realized the truth. She had walked Archie's dog past Regina while the dark haired brooding woman sat in her car and stared at the water. Pongo not only failed to bark at Regina, but he actually whined for her and jumped at the car until she opened the door and gave him a scratch behind his ears.

Realizing that the dog didn't match Regina with the aggression of the attack no Archie led to other questions which led a series of events, starting with Regina's discovery of Cora and Hook's ship at the docks. The villains themselves were still at large but at least Regina was cleared of one murder.

In the meantime, Emma Swan had not apologized. Her parents were doing so on her behalf but not because they gave a flying fuck about Regina.

"Emma is acting absolutely bizarrely." James hated asking Regina of all people for help, but it seemed that whenever there was a crisis as of late, they ended up turning to one another.

For her part, Snow looked resigned to whatever fate had in store for them. She pointed and said numbly,

"Oh look, there she is now."

Emma had come running around the corner, having just sped through the entire town on a total magic high. "It's magic mothafuckas!" She yelled as she streaked by her parents and Regina. Streaked, in more ways than one, because she was really just wearing her jeans and a bra and streaks of fire rained behind her as she ran.

"_One_ dream catcher." Snow closed her eyes and shook her head. "One dream catcher, one spell, and she's suddenly addicted."

"Well has she done any other magic besides all of this running about?" Regina watched with growing curiosity as Emma doubled back and did a series of backflips until landing atop James' shoulders where she hovered. "Hello Ms. Swan." She greeted Emma with a tilt of her head. "May I see your eyes for a moment?"

"My eyes? My eyes can shoot fire Regina! And snakes! And Canadian dimes!" Emma blinked and blinked but nothing came out. "Oh, well I'm sure they could do all of that if I worked at it a little." Then suddenly a burst of flames came from her hands and she screamed and fell right onto Regina who grabbed her and fell backward against the door with an 'oomph'.

"I'm sorry Emma…" Regina found herself apologizing first, which _really_ of annoyed her. She used a freezing spell, similar to the one that had once been used on her. It poured from her hands and from the fairy dust that still swam inside her.

Emma muttered "Magic mothaaaaaaafuckaaaakas," her pupils enormous and purple. Regina leaned over her and tapped her skull quickly and she fell asleep.

James helped Regina to bring Emma inside where they deposited her on the couch in the sitting room.

"Now you may leave my home." Regina said, brushing past Snow and James on her way to the kitchen. "I'll have your daughter safely in your hands by day's end."

"We can't trust you!" and "No!" were shouted simultaneously. Snow was the first to realize how easy it was—to ask for Regina's help and then turn on her moments later.

"All right." Regina acquiesced. "Stick around then. This is going to be exciting." And she settled herself back in the chair in the room where Emma slumbered and sipped a cup of tea while she waited.

After two hours, James and Snow decided to go check on Henry.

"If you harm her in any way!" Were James' parting words. Regina's response was to request that he actually complete a thought for once in his life, leaving Snow to deal with a grumpy Prince for the rest of the day.

Still, Regina drank her tea, then made more, then just sat and waited. It was nearly dinnertime when Emma finally awoke. She looked groggy and weak with a blanket clutched to her chest.

"Where am I?" she asked, but then mumbled "Dammit. Another magic binge…" a moment later.

"Yes. Magic. You were full of it. Now you can make a clean break, a new start, leaving magic behind forever." Regina rolled her eyes and couldn't help but add, "Really Em, after less than a week with it? What did you do, a spell every hour?"

"More like five or six spells an hour." Emma breathed in and out slowly while Regina fetched her a glass of water. Once the glass was emptied, she looked a little less pale. "Oh, so hey. Yeah. Sorry about before and all."

"Sorry about before and all." Regina echoed the words quickly after Emma spoke them. "Is that all?"

Emma shrugged. Her shoulders were bare. She looked confused and sort of lost.

"Your track record is pretty bad Regina."

"Lovely. Well. Thank you for that. Now that you're finished not apologizing to me, you are free to leave." Regina bit her tongue before she said anything more. That familiar hollow feeling drummed in her chest like another heartbeat. She looked at her hands around her mug of tea and felt suddenly old.

"Why did you take care of me if you were going to just turf me?" Emma scrunched her nose then scratched it.

"Just to make certain that you didn't levitate or channel Lucifer in your dreams—assuming such a being exists I suppose." Regina said the words as though she might be curious herself. Then her own nose itched. "Stop that!" She hissed.

"I can't help it. Whatever I'm feeling you're going to have to feel. Gold called it the spell to cure Sociopaths." Emma sighed and Regina felt a wave of empathy toward herself—then toward Emma—then back toward herself. It was very confusing.

"I. What?" Regina often said 'what' when she just didn't want to continue a conversation any longer. Only this time, Emma knew it and just grinned at her. Regina felt a wave of affection toward herself. "Dammit, stop!" Her annoyance rebounded back onto Emma who responded with an even stronger burst of caring.

Emma's affections surged in Regina like waves. As though Regina were really a special, rare thing—a pearl in a shell or a diamond in…

"Are you planting images in my mind now? This is insane!" Regina couldn't stop feeling…feeling…good! Dammit. Whatever Emma was doing, it was easing all of the loneliness, all of the despair. It was better than an apology.

And then there was a surge of something else. Regina shouldn't have been surprised—Emma's silly little crush could be so obvious at times—but there was disbelief that tinged the feelings of warmth and caring and desire.

Desire thrummed even harder. And all Emma did was look at her.

Regina's left hand gripped the arm of the chair while her right held onto her mug so hard she cracked the handle.

Images came hard and fast into Regina's mind. Herself, on this chair, Emma straddling her, kissing her, apologizing to her, telling her she believed in what they had…

"What we had? Have? What do you mean? There's nothing between us?" Regina gasped as Emma cascaded her mind with images of their future.

They shared a house. Smaller than this one. Somewhere other than Storybrooke. And they had a baby, a little boy with dark hair like Regina's.

"Oh shit!" Regina swore uncharacteristically at all the sex they were having in this parallel reality.

"It's the future. Gold gave me a future seeking spell. He said if I fuck up things now I'll fuck this up, so I had to show you." Emma slid from the couch and made her way on her knees toward Regina. The blanket they had used to cover her was pushed away.

In Regina's mind, Emma tearing was now at Regina's slacks, and oh fuck…oh fuck…

Those full lips between Regina's thighs, _eating her_ …Emma's thoughts clearly used the word 'eating' something Regina wouldn't have come up with…

"Wait, dammit, I'm sorry!" Emma was doubled over now, clutching her head. "This is too fast. I'm so sorry Regina."

Just like that, Regina went from being on the verge of orgasm to sitting calmly in her chair again. She raised a shaking hand and swept the spell from between them. Still, she felt less lonely than she had before. "Oh. Well then."

"You're welcome." Emma panted, grinning from where she still knelt.

Magical addiction came with an odd assortment of consequences. There were physical ailments—boredom, powerlessness, feelings of inadequacy—that magnified exponentially depending in the numbers of power-seeking spells one had enacted. Power-sharing spells evoked feelings of disconnection, of disjointedness, of loneliness, as the user came to a realization about some elements of human nature.

"We're all alone in the universe!" Emma sobbed. It was midnight on the same day that James and Snow had dropped her off and now Regina was stuck sitting with her on the kitchen floor, describing the ways they were all connected.

Somehow the whole process was good for Regina as much as it helped Emma.

"We all have to face ourselves. It's ok Emma…" She found herself saying this often, as the woman on her kitchen floor kept asking for anything—anything—to distract herself from her feelings. Sex, weed, booze—none of it was allowed. Not until Emma got a grip. Then Regina would light the joint herself. Well, not really. She'd likely just open a bottle of wine. In the meantime, she just yawned.

By sunrise, Regina was half asleep draped at the foot of her stairs while Emma explained the significance of her home's architectural features.

At noon, they still hadn't slept, but Emma was ready for a walk. They made their way to Granny's where Emma got on a table and proclaimed her faith in Regina's basic humanity, loudly, for all to hear.

Snow White was the one who found them the next day at dawn when sleep finally won its battle against the two women. They were crammed in the play structure that Regina had once designed for Henry. Apparently it doubled as a star observatory but they had been too tired to test it out before sunset.


End file.
